Responding to Noah, Richman uses an idiotic straw man argument to defend his incendiary comments about Creoles, and Noah finally decided to create a petition in response. Consider signing it. Here's an explanatory excerpt from the petition page:
This petition is a request for the immediate ouster of Alan Richman from his position as food writer at GQ. The formal inquiry, as voiced by its sole author, Noah Bonaparte Pais, is based around the abject bigotry in Mr. Richman's latest article, "Yes, We're Open" [November '06], in which the writer had the following (and much more) to say about New Orleans' native Creole people: "Supposedly, Creoles can be found in and around New Orleans. I have never met one and suspect they are a faerie folk, like Leprechauns, rather than an indigenous race. The myth is that once, long ago, Creoles existed... The 'crab and Creole' salad wasn't as interesting as its name-- I was expecting a composition that included chopped up Creoles, allowing me finally to glimpse one of them."
...
Furthermore, Mr. Richman, in one of several letters sent to me amidst a recent maelstrom of withering criticism, attempted to acquit himself with the following argument:
"Was I racist? A ridiculous claim that I refute outright... Were Creoles attacked in the streets by non-Creoles egged on by me? Have Creoles been banned from public schools? Is there a national campaign underway to relocate Creoles to military bases, segregate them behind barbed wire? Did anybody even stick his tongue out at a Creole? Please."
Ironically, this radical defense only goes further toward the realization of Mr. Richman's inherently racist views. Unlike those who flaunt their prejudice (e.g., skinheads or white supremacists), casual bigots do not believe their viewpoints to be slanted at all-- they maintain positions which fall within the boundaries of their own self-created mainstream. Hence, when confronted with this accusation, Mr. Richman conjured a holocaustic, Nazi-like dream state with which to contrast his own comments, thereby expressing his own extremist opinion that nothing short of a human rights crisis could possibly constitute harmful racism. That is, in and of itself, the embodiment of casual bigotry, and should be taken as tantamount to a subconscious confession of such.
I very much like Noah's analysis in that final paragraph.
